


neat gold

by Anonymous



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Grand Prix Final Banquet, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-08 11:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11645628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A eulogy for the living, or maybe the monsters inside his mind.





	neat gold

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr in February.

 

Otabek finds him on the rooftop of the hotel, one hour into the closing banquet.

He walks over and sits beside Yuri wordlessly. An open bottle of amber-coloured liquid rests on the table in front of them. Meukow XO Cognac, Otabek reads from the gold lettering. A golden panther leaps around onto the front of the teardrop-shaped bottle.

Yuri doesn’t look at him. He’s staring blankly up into the stars, arms braced on the bench behind him. The top buttons of his dress shirt are undone; the pale line of his throat is bared.

“I’m celebrating a funeral,” Yuri says finally, as though responding to a request for an explanation.

“A funeral,” Otabek repeats.

“Yeah.” Yuri grabs the bottle and takes a large swig. His expression doesn’t change. “My own, actually. Want some?” He proffers the bottle at Otabek. The cognac splashes inside.

“No, thank you,” Otabek says.

Yuri shrugs. “Your loss.” He tugs at his tie, loosening it even more. One end is about to slip completely free. Then he reaches into the sleeves of his suit jacket to unbutton his sleeve cuffs. He does this neatly; the alcohol doesn’t appear to have affected his fine motor control.

“I didn’t realise that becoming World Champion was such a terrible fate.”

“It’s not. I’m overjoyed.” Yuri says this flatly. He takes another long sip; this time, he rolls the cognac in his mouth. Otabek sees the ripple of his throat as he finally swallows.

“I read a quote somewhere once. It takes ten years for the body to completely regenerate itself. So you’re like a completely different person, right? We only recognise each other because we follow certain patterns. Like, we look a certain way and act a certain way. I said it to Victor before the Grand Prix Final. Victor Nikiforov is dead. The old Victor I knew would never do anything like he did. But that’s okay, I’m going to kill myself too.”

“Yuri,” Otabek says.

“Chill, Otabek, I’ll still be winning gold. Congratulations on the silver, by the way, even though your quad sal was an embarrassing mess. Anyway, I’m only going to be killing everything that’s stupid about myself. Stop smiling. Unfortunately for you and your gold medal dreams, only a very small part of me is stupid.”

“Okay,” Otabek says. “You mean that you want to change what you don’t like about yourself. That sounds reasonable.”

Yuri grimaces and brings the bottle to his lips again.

If Otabek remembers correctly, the legal drinking age in the U.S. is twenty-one. So: “How did you get that, anyway?” He gestures to the alcohol.

“Bribed Georgi with goss on Anya’s boyfriend. I paid for it myself, though. Look, it’s so cool.” Yuri turns the bottle around and shows Otabek the rest of the panther’s body curling onto the other side.

Otabek should remind him that he’s too young to be drinking. Otabek should remind him that drinking will affect his athletic performance. It’s the responsible thing to do. But despite everything, Otabek can’t fully suppress the shiver of fondness that races through his chest. It temporarily eclipses the heaviness that had descended there when Otabek emerged onto the roof and saw Yuri alone with the bottle.

Yuri draws it back towards himself, fingers curled around the neck. “I hate how I’m always worrying about being the best. I hate how I have to depend on my body as it is now to win. I hate how I’m always scared that my body will finally change. I hate how every competition might be my swansong. I hate feeling sorry for myself. I hate how I’m so clingy. How I can’t let people go. I hate how I idolise Victor. I hate how no one takes me seriously.”

Yuri’s not looking at him. He’s staring stubbornly down at the city lights of Boston. The neon colours, the bustling traffic. In the distance, studded skyscrapers loom against the inky darkness.

Otabek reaches over and gently tugs the glass bottle out of Yuri’s hands. Yuri lets it go without protest. Otabek takes the bronze-coloured lid discarded on the table and twists it back on.

“Yuri Plisetsky was a soldier,” he says quietly, slowly, “who fought bitterly for everything that he achieved. He had to become strong to defend himself when no one else would. He had to carve a road for himself when no one expected him to succeed. He hid his vulnerabilities so that they couldn’t strike out at them. He was too young to be a soldier. He was the bravest person that I knew, but it’s alright to be tired of the fighting.”

Yuri swallows, this time without a mouthful of cognac. Then he scowls and pulls his tie off with a quick motion, wrapping it around his wrist. “That’s stupid, Otabek.”

Otabek smiles. “Is it?” he says, and presses the Meukow back into Yuri’s hands.


End file.
